A standard medical procedure is to insert an endotracheal tube into the the trachea of a patient to control the patient's breathing. When mucous interferes with breathing, a suction catheter connected to a vacuum apparatus is inserted through the endotracheal tube into the trachea, and, if necessary, into the left and right bronchi one bronchus at a time for removal of the mucous. It is important that this procedure be performed as efficiently and rapidly as possible.
The left main-stem bronchus presents a special access problem to a person who is inserting a suction catheter into a patient. Humans have left and right bronchial main-stem passages branching at slight angles from the trachea. The left bronchial passage is more difficult to reach than the right bronchial passage because it is slightly smaller and branches at a slightly greater angle from the main trachea than the right bronchial passage. Curved-tip catheters have been used to reach the bronchial passages and in particular the left bronchial passage. Such catheters are somewhat more likely to gain access to gain access to the left passage than straight-tip catheters, which have little or no chance of success. Problems arise, however, because it is often difficult to know where the curved tip is pointing and such curved tip catheters end up in the right bronchial passage as often as 50% of the time. When the catheter is to be positioned in each lung for drainage, the patient is turned over in turn on each side which is to be drained so as to use gravity to aid in a downward movement of the tip of the catheter. The carina, the "cough center" positioned at the junction of the left and right bronchi, is particularly sensitive to touching and should be avoided during the insertion procedure.
A catheter is inserted into a bronchus generally to suck out mucous, a procedure that is often performed during the time a patient is on a ventilator apparatus. Rapid access to the difficult left bronchus results in less time off the ventilator. The net result of rapid access can lead to a shorter stay in a critical care unit.
The same catheter tube that is used to suck mucous from a bronchus can be used at times to move liquid into the bronchus in order to thin the mucous prior to suctioning. Also, a medication can be placed in the bronchus through the catheter tube.
It is an object of this invention to provide a suction catheter that can be easily and rapidly placed into the left bronchus.
It is still another object of this invention to provide a catheter that is adapted to be easily directed into the left bronchial passage and that is further adapted to be used both for suctioning or injecting purposes.